ich will wissen wie ihr wohnt

Bernhard Cella

3 / 1 - 5 / 25 / 2014

Bernhard Cella simply does what he always does, he transfers a dramatic concept to a sculptural process. But what happens when an artist occupies the Kunstverein as an institutional venue, redefines it as his studio and invites other artists there, thus taking on the position of a curator in a certain respect?

In his contribution to the Kunstverein in Hamburg, the Viennese artist Bernhard Cella (*1969) turns the lower floor into a walkable studio, a production site. In Hamburg, the artist’s project "ich will wissen wie ihr wohnt" ("i want to know how you live") responds to the question regarding the current role of a Kunstverein, since it is currently in a phase of repositioning itself.

In his work process, Cella will place the focus on the design in the form of a relief. Sculptural practice and thematic expression go hand in hand here and are grasped as independent components on an equal footing. Cella invites Hamburg-based artists, interviews them, makes molds of them, and would like to learn about how they live and the way in which they reflect upon what they do. Moreover, this procedure is in itself a sculptural process making use of both analogue and digital reproduction methods.

The pouring of three-dimension molds is an early reproduction technique, particularly for cultural artefacts in museums, art academies and artist’s studios, to which a special value is attached. The method stems from the Gründerzeit, around the time when the Kunstverein in Hamburg was also founded, and disappeared only with the rise of photography. In the update of this technique, the artist himself becomes the source material.

With the support of the Ministry of Culture of the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg and the Austrian Federal Ministry for Education, the Arts and Culture.